No, this isn’t a tagline to the latest workplace comedy coming to a theater near you. Instead, according to a recent article from The Wall Street Journal, it’s a foundation of pharmaceutical company Bayer’s new management playbook.

“The plan’s grand novelty,” writes the WSJ, “is CEO Bill Anderson’s [new] worker deployment scheme: Employees from various departments will be recruited to teams that decide on projects and work together for 90 days. Then, workers regroup in different configurations for their next undertaking.”

Bill developed this plan after hearing — and experiencing himself — a common complaint: It can often take too long at a large company like Bayer to get anything done. “Launching a new product takes years instead of months,” explains the WSJ. “Disputes between departments take too long to resolve. Bill learned that company rules and procedures fill 1,362 pages: ‘Longer than War and Peace,’ he said, ‘and a lot less exciting.’”

Bill believes his new playbook may help the company move faster, accelerate innovation, and shift decision-making and prioritization from managers to workers doing, well, the actual work. In other words: “Fewer bosses, fewer rules.”

Original post > LinkedIn